Curve in the Road
by ZiggyChaos
Summary: Ten, Donna. The Doctor tells Donna what he really thinks of her.


**Curve in the Road**

"Oh, I am _so _going to kill you!" Donna growled as she sloughed through the thick mud that clung to every last bit of her. The gunk was so viscous, she'd been forced to carry her shoes because they kept being pulled off with every hard-earned step. The lower part of her trousers were coated in the icky stuff which, in turn, clung to her legs. She was trying hard to ignore the _squelch-_y noises being made each time she moved.

The Doctor wasn't having any better of a time of it, though _his_ Converse hadn't been sucked off by the quagmire they were squishing through. His blue trousers were just as covered as hers, and it seemed that instead of acting as a mudflap and keeping the mire at bay, his overcoat was flinging the stuff up so the back of the coat and his hair was flecked brownish/grayish/blackish/whatever the color the gunk was.

"'The town is just ahead, Donna, just beyond the curve in the road!'" She griped, her voice lowered in some semblance of her alien friend's. "'You'll have fun, Donna! It's a beautiful day! The locals are friendly! What can possibly happen?' Well, I'll tell you what happened, Alien Boy!"

"I'm sure you'll remind me. It wasn't as if I wasn't there, too," the Doctor muttered under his breath.

"What did you say?" Donna queried threateningly.

"Why don't you remind me what happened? I may have missed something!" he stated louder, sarcastically.

But Donna was already rampaging on, oblivious to the fact the Time Lord had even spoken. "Oh, the locals were friendly enough! No worries there! And we _did _have fun, I'll admit, for awhile, anyway! But somebody, some O So Wonderful Lord of Time, who doesn't seem able to _keep_ time, misjudged the time of year and brings us to this fun, friendly town in the middle of monsoon season! So, we get friendly and fun and _rain by the bucketsful_ before the day is half over! And now it's hot and sticky and we're walking through a mud pit to get back to the TARDIS!"

Silence.

"Well? What have you to say to that?" the redhead demanded.

"Oh, you're finished!" The Doctor said, a bit too enthusiastically. "I wasn't sure if you intended to mention the other things that happened, perhaps pausing to draw in more breath with which to castigate me further." He caught the smoldering look in his friend's eyes and realized he may have gone a bit too far. "Look at it this way, they say mud is gr-reat for the complexion!" He snatched up some of the gunk. "You know how much people pay to get this stuff put on their faces, their bodies--"

"So now you're saying I have a bad complexion?"

"No, of course not! You're beautiful just as you are! Mud and all! Honest!" He expertly flicked the mud off his hand. It landed with a satisfying _splat._

"You're just saying that!"

"Yes!" The Doctor stated sincerely. Seeing her glance sideways at him, he added, "I say it because it's true."

Donna halted. Her voice was softer, more gentle. "Really?"

The Gallifreyan paused to look her directly in the eye. His voice was sincere. "Cross my hearts."

"You think I'm beautiful?" she asked, as if still not believing him.

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."

The smile that spread across Donna's face brightened up her whole appearance. Her eyes filled with tears. She couldn't remember the last time somebody had told her she was beautiful; at least, not without some kind of motivation, like trying to get her into the sack.

She stepped forward and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Thank you," she answered softy.

He smiled crookedly. "Thank _you_, Donna Noble."

They stared at each other for a long moment, then the Doctor moved back.

"Right!" he stated, taking her muddied shoes in one hand. "Come on, we'd better keep going or else we'll get stuck!" The Doctor grabbed her other hand and they started squelching their way towards the curve in the road and the TARDIS beyond.

Donna squeezed his hand in gratitude, allowing herself to be pulled along. She smiled when he turned his head to glance at her; his bright grin and twinkling eyes warmed her soul. She couldn't remember why she'd been angry at him earlier. She vowed to take his gift of showing her the universe and hold it close to her single, human heart. The good as well as the bad.

They rounded the bend to see the blue box that was the TARDIS patiently awaiting their return.

Suddenly, thunder cracked and the skies opened up once more. Donna looked up into the downpour, then down again. The Doctor raised his eyebrows. She grinned, then started to laugh. His laughter joined hers. His grip on her hand tightened as, together, they raced through the now soupy quagmire to their home, not caring that they were soaked and mud-coated by the time they got to the door.

4/30/09

Response to the doctor_donna drabble challenge prompt, "curve"


End file.
